Thirty Nights Read online

  Hunter pressed the remote to zoom in on a closeup and watched as a breath slipped from between Gillian’s parted pink lips. It was little more than a whisper, but the microphone in the bedroom had no trouble picking it up. Hunger suddenly had claws.

  Needing to touch something—someone—Hunter thrust his hand beneath his sweater, splayed his right palm across his hot, burning chest and felt the increased beat of his heart beneath his fingertips.

  As he watched Gillian’s exploring hand move slowly downward, his body came fully to life, pressing painfully against the hard barrier of denim that was a poor substitute for a woman’s hand. Struck with an almost overwhelming urge to yank open his jeans and satisfy the woman hunger that was ripping away at him—as it had for too many nights lately—Hunter decided the time had come to personally welcome his alluring houseguest to Castle Mountain.

  THE NIGHTGOWN WAS COOL and seductively sensual to the touch. It was also nearly transparent. A woman wearing this gown would be revealing far more than merely her body, Gillian feared. She’d be putting her inner self on display, as well.

  Even as she fought against it, some compulsion she was unable to resist made her hold the gown against her body. She drew in a sharp breath at her reflection. Even though she was fully dressed beneath the silk, the transformation proved riveting.

  Her eyes seemed strangely wider and burned with the same edgy brilliance Gillian remembered seeing in her mother’s gaze whenever Irene Cassidy had been preparing to welcome Hunter to her husband’s house. There was an unfamiliar, almost painful tightening in her breasts. And between her legs.

  “It suits you.”

  Not having heard him approach, the deep voice made Gillian jump. She dropped the gown and pressed a palm against her pounding heart as she whirled around and viewed Hunter standing in the open doorway.

  4

  HUNTER WAS IN THE SHADOWS, which precluded her from getting a good look at him. But he seemed even larger than Gillian remembered. And far more menacing. In his black sweater and black jeans, he reminded her of a creature of the night.

  She pressed a hand against her breast where her runaway heart was beating like a terrified rabbit’s.

  “You scared me to death!”

  “I don’t know why. You knew I was in the house. I informed you in my note that I’d be joining you in my room after supper. You should have been expecting me.”

  “Mrs. Adams said you didn’t usually leave your lab until after midnight.”

  “Since Mrs. Adams has never stayed a minute past six in the three years she’s been employed here, I have no idea how she’d be cognizant of my work habits.”

  He crossed the room, moving with a dangerous, stealthy grace, bent down and plucked the gown from the floor. “You aren’t dressed.”

  Wary, but refusing to admit it, Gillian lifted her chin and met his gaze. It took every ounce of self-control she possessed not to gasp at the sight of the twisted scars marring the left side of the face she’d never quite been able to get out of her mind. Or the glint of the firelight flickering on what could only be described as a hook that had taken the place of his left hand.

  She swallowed and kept her expression cool when what she longed to do was weep for whatever tragedy had befallen him. “Actually, I am dressed.”

  His firmly cut lips twisted into a mockery of a smile that revealed not the faintest glimmer of humor. If the eyes were indeed windows to the soul, Hunter’s reminded her of storm shutters painted black.

  It had been too long since he’d had a haircut; his shaggy jet hair, curling around his collar, was as unruly as his reputation. He also hadn’t shaved; the dark shadow on the still-unscarred side of his face added to his dangerously uncivilized appearance.

  Gillian was a little afraid of him. She was even more afraid of herself. And the reckless, crazy way he was making her feel. Even as she felt a sharp tingle of misgiving, her fingers practically itched with the need to touch that roughened red flesh.

  The desire to soothe warred with the old childhood taboo against revealing impolite fascination with any sort of disfigurement or handicap. And both those emotions battled with the unbidden feminine awareness that was humming through her veins.

  “You’re still in your traveling clothes,” he said mildly. “I instructed you to wear this.” He held the nightgown toward her.

  The contrast between the delicate pastel silk and the cold steel caused a distinct twinge somewhere deep in her feminine core. With the exception of her music, Gillian had always been a woman who’d ruled her emotions—rather than letting them rule her. That being the case, she reminded herself about her determination to set some ground rules to this strange game Hunter had brought her here to play.

  “I thought it might be a nice idea if we could have a chance to talk, first.”

  “You don’t seem to understand.”

  Apparently deciding not to push the issue of the gown for now, he sat down in a black suede tub chair. He was no longer towering over her, but when he stretched his long legs out in front of him, spreading them open to reveal his blatant arousal, Gillian felt no less threatened. And even more emotionally rattled.

  “There’s nothing for us to talk about,” he said.

  “We could begin with hello.”

  He sighed heavily. Wearily. “Hello.” The word was offered without a hint of welcome. His hooded eyes flicked over her—appraising, assessing. “You’ve grown up.”

  “I suppose that’s inevitable. Since I was twelve years old the last time you saw me.”

  “That’s why I barely remembered you.”

  He had no way of knowing exactly how badly those words stung. A distinctly feminine part of her bridled at the unflattering remark.

  “Well, no one could accuse you of trying to get a woman into bed by boosting her ego.”

  “Would you rather I lie and tell you that I’d found you incredibly desirable back then? That thinking about you made me hot? That I laid awake nights, getting hard as I fantasized what it would feel like to strip that ugly schoolgirl uniform off your body and touch your soft, white, virginal, adolescent flesh all over?”

  “Of course I wouldn’t have wanted you to notice me in that way,” she said, surprising herself by her ability to speak so calmly after his sarcastic words had slapped her as badly as if he’d struck her. Her fantasies, which may have admittedly been heightened by a bit of sexual desire she hadn’t understood at the time had always been of a gilded romantic nature, as if filmed with a soft-focus lens. “The very idea is disgusting.”

  “On that we can agree. Believe me, sweetheart, the only females who have ever turned me on are well past the age of consent.”

  “Like my mother.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Horrified, Gillian would have done anything to be able to call them back.

  Hunter didn’t immediately respond. Instead, he treated her to another examination, this one longer, more intimate, starting at the top of her head, moving with tantalizing slowness over her body, down to her boots, then back up again to her face.

  He was measuring her, in a flagrantly masculine way that made her vividly aware of every inch of skin his gaze touched.

  “Irene was a very appealing woman, in her way. But you, Gillian, have surpassed her.”

  The compliment, offered without an iota of warmth from a man capable of making her feel hot and icy all at the same time, should not have given her any pleasure, Gillian told herself. It shouldn’t. But, dammit, it did.

  “Men have always found my mother sexually appealing.”

  Which was why, Gillian knew, she’d been sent away to boarding school before her fourteenth birthday. It was, after all, difficult to appear endlessly young with a teenager in the house.

  “To tell the truth,” Hunter said with a thoughtful frown, “Irene was always too obvious for my taste. She reminded me a lot of the moonshine we used to make in the lab in my undergraduate days—cheap, potent and capable of leaving a man with one helluva hangover afterward….

  “Over the years I’ve come to prefer a smooth, complex cognac. The type that lingers on the tongue.”

  When his gaze drifted wickedly back down to her breasts, the butterflies that had been flapping their wings in Gillian’s stomach turned to giant condors.

  She decided the time had come to change the subject. To bring it back to her reason for having come to Castle Mountain island in the first place.

  “My father told me about your threat to destroy him.”

  “I assumed as much. Since you’re here.”

  He pulled the silk through the delicate prongs of the hook, absently stroking it with his good hand in a way that suggested he was already envisioning her wearing it. And taking it off her.

  “What a loyal daughter you are, Gillian. And what a shame that George Cassidy doesn’t deserve such a sacrifice.”

  He was so damn smug! So pleased with his ability to play with people, to move them around at his whim as if life was merely his own personal life-size chessboard.

  Gillian tossed her head. “He also told me about your accusation.”

  His eyes narrowed as if she’d just called him a liar. “It happens to be the truth. And I can prove it.”

  There was no need. Gillian knew Hunter was telling the truth. “Why did you wait so long to do anything about it?” Her voice, no longer cool, wavered, revealing her distress with not only her personal situation, but her father’s treachery.

  “I don’t suppose you’d believe that I was waiting for you to grow up?” he inquired whimsically.

  Gillian was strangely grateful for his unemotional, almost distant tone. It helped her gather up her scattered composure. It also expunged any pity she might have been feeling concerning whatever
tragedies he’d suffered since that day he’d stormed from the lab.

  “Since you’ve already admitted to not remembering me, I’d find that explanation difficult to accept.”

  His careless shrug suggested he’d figured as much. “Surely you’ve heard that old saying about revenge being a dish best served cold?”

  “That’s all this is about? Revenge?”

  “Can you think of a better reason?”

  He was a disturbing man. A disturbing and fascinating man. Having only ever dated men of her own world—charming, unthreatening males who prided themselves on having moved beyond ancient chauvinistic male behavior—Gillian was finding Hunter’s cooly cynical attitude as compelling as it was unnerving.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she said, not quite truthfully.

  “You should be. You’re also lying, which is against the rules of our little game.”

  “I don’t understand.” She dragged her hand through her hair again and as it settled back over her shoulders, watched a hot desire that was as unsettling as the rest of him flare in his midnight eyes. “Why me?”

  She’d never thought of herself as the type of woman who instilled lustful thoughts. Even her music, which had been called “hot-tub Muzak” by its detractors, was designed to soothe rather than excite.

  “It’s quite simple, Gillian. Something about your Celtic video moved me. I can’t explain it, but the fact is, I want you. And I intend to have you.”

  “Do you always get everything you want?” she asked with genuine curiosity.

  He stood up and moved toward her. “Are you always this argumentative?”

  He was suddenly too close. Gillian took an unconscious step back. “Actually, most people find me quite agreeable.” She decided this was not the time to mention the petulant male crew in Rio.

  “Really?” He took another step. “Perhaps I bring out the worst in you.”

  She could feel the heat from his body, but refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing exactly how strongly he intimidated her, Gillian held her ground.

  “Oh, I’d say that was a given,” she said with mock sweetness. She was not ordinarily sarcastic. But this was, she reminded herself, a far from ordinary situation.

  Hunter sighed and shook his head. “I don’t understand. You were made aware of my intentions, and the fact that you’re here in Castle Mountain, in my house, indeed, in my bedroom, would lead any reasonable man to conclude that you’ve agreed to my terms. So why do you suddenly feel the need to test my restraint?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, fudging the truth again, despite Hunter’s prohibition against lying.

  Despite the note, the nightgown, even the mirror overhead, Gillian still couldn’t make herself believe that he could possibly be serious.

  “There you go, breaking the rules again.” His dark eyes were as confident as a predator who’d cornered his prey. “Of course you know what I’m referring to. The deal I made with your father was that your days would be your own. But your nights belong to me.”

  Hunter’s wolfish smile radiated male arrogance. “Yet the sun has gone down, and here you are, still overdressed.”

  He frowned as he took in the expensive slacks and sweater she’d bought in Belfast, where she’d played to a full house three nights in a row at the Grand Opera House.

  “If you were hoping I’d strip them off you, then have my wild, wicked way with you, I have to confess that rape has never been one of my fantasies.

  “But you will take them off for me, Gillian,” he assured her as his gleaming dark eyes glided over her. “It may take a few minutes, or even a few hours, but you’ll soon learn to obey my every command.

  “If I tell you to lean over that chest so I can take you hard and fast from behind, you’ll do it without question. If I instruct you to kneel on this floor and take me deep in your lovely mouth, you’ll swallow me deeper than you’ve ever swallowed any other man without a murmur of protest. My game, Gillian. My rules.”

  There was a sinister timbre to his voice that caused pinpricks of anxiety to skim up her spine. But understanding that it was vital to establish her own position in this strange game he’d brought her here to play, Gillian struggled for some semblance of calm.

  “This may come as a shock to your chauvinist nature, Hunter, but women in these enlightened times do not take orders from men.”

  “You will. And you know what, Gillian? You’re going to love it. You’ll obey me because you choose to, not because I make you do anything you won’t willingly agree to.”

  Feeling rashly daring and defiant, she glared up at him. “I do wish you’d stop treating me like some prostitute you’ve bought for the night.”

  “I don’t consider you a prostitute, Gillian. Although, in a way, I suppose, you could say I’ve booked your services. But for a great deal more than a single night.”

  Her hands curled into fists at her side as Gillian, who’d never hit another human being in her life, was suddenly tempted to slap him. With herculean effort, she resisted the uncharacteristic impulse. Just barely.

  “My father was right.” With him standing so close, she had to tilt her head back to glare up at him. “You are a devil.”

  “That may be.” Appearing unfazed by her insult, he rubbed his unshaven jaw, giving her the impression he was actually considering the idea. “Which means, I suppose, that you’re soon going to discover exactly how it feels to dance—metaphorically speaking—with the devil.”

  He held out the nightgown again. His eyes were as hard and as dark as onyx, his lips set in a foreboding line. “Now, I want you free of all the artifices that cover your lovely body, Gillian. So, either you take off your clothes, or I’ll do it for you. But if you lead me to do that, believe me, sweetheart, you’ll never be able to wear them again.”

  She wondered what had happened to his so-called promise not to make her do anything she didn’t want.

  “I could leave.”

  “There’s a new moon tonight. And even if you could get past the security gates, which believe me, you couldn’t, the road down to the shore is treacherous enough in the daytime. In the dark it’s deadly. You could fall off the cliff. And how could I ever explain your tragic demise to your loving father?”

  His voice was thick with sarcasm. Even as she reminded herself that she’d been a very young impressionable girl when she’d known Hunter, Gillian couldn’t believe that she was capable of so misjudging a man.

  But then again, she considered grimly, hadn’t she always believed that her father was an honorable man? And look how wrong she’d been about that.

  “If you’re planning to hit me, or whip me, or strike me in any way, I really am leaving.”

  “You needn’t worry about that. I’m not into whips or chains.”

  “I also won’t take part in any orgies.” About this she was perfectly clear. “So if you’re thinking about bringing any other players into this strange game of yours, I’d rather take my chances with the dark and the cliff.”

  “I suppose I could agree to that. So long as you prove yourself woman enough to satisfy me,” he tacked on wickedly.

  Bile rose in her throat at the idea that her entire life had once revolved around this man.

  During those lonely teen years in Switzerland, she’d even kept a secret scrapbook filled with clippings about his successes after her father had forced him from MIT, including the articles about his genetic personality profile test, which, while as controversial as everything else about Hunter, had been embraced by businesses worldwide. It was undoubtedly those royalties that had paid for this luxurious house.

  Even though she’d put the scrapbook away years ago, she’d continued to think about him more than was reasonable for a woman who should have outgrown a childhood crush by now.

  “You truly are disgusting.”

  He shrugged, obviously unwounded. “The clothes, Gillian,” he reminded her on a soft voice more deadly than the loudest shout. “I’d suggest beginning with the boots. And then we’ll progress from there.”

  5

  EVER SINCE HER FATHER had told her about Hunter’s threat, Gillian had continued to assure herself that she wasn’t really going to have sex with Hunter. Oh, once or twice the thought had crossed her mind that perhaps he truly was serious, and during those times, she’d managed to comfort herself that if necessary, to save her father, she could make herself go through with it. But now she couldn’t move.